Toy Story 5 actually has a decent reason for existing. This is the first installment to directly address the arrival of “devices” for kids—those Internet-connected screens that have taken over childhood (actually, the world) since the series began with Toy Story in 1995. In the movie, such devices are represented by Lilypad, an introductory iPad of sorts given to 8-year-old Bonnie, the girl who inherited Woody, Buzz, and the gang in Toy Story 3. Bonnie’s parents hope the device will help the shy girl connect with the girls in her dance class, who all already have their own Lilypads. Bonnie not only becomes addicted and disinterested in her former playthings, sending cowgirl Jessie through another crisis of abandonment, she also gets a crash course in online bullying. Even so, Toy Story 5—co-written and co-directed by McKenna Harris and Pixar veteran Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, WALL-E)—hardly demonizes entertainment technology (a move that would be hypocritical, if not self-defeating). Depending on your level of charity, you could say that the movie either brings some nuance to the “iPad generation” conversation, suggesting bad friends are bad friends no matter what the context, or that it dodges the question by making the other girls the bad guys. In any case, if Toy Story 5 doesn’t quite rise to the challenge of its conceit, it still offers plenty of familiar fun, with chase scenes aplenty and gags that rely on both visual and verbal humor. (I especially enjoyed Lilypad’s eye twitch when Buzz and Woody figure out how to activate her voice command.) Moving Jesse center stage may feel too much like an extension of Toy Story 2 (itself an extension of the emotional heart of the first film), but given that it allows Joan Cusack to do more of her brilliant voice work (she sounds like a cow working on some cud), it seems churlish to complain.
(6/24/2026)
